Cape Town - Eighteen to 34-year-olds have dominated vaccine uptake since becoming eligible, resulting in the province recording a record number of 53 290 vaccines administered on August 20, health officials said.
This came to light during the latest Covid-19 briefing for the province on Thursday.
“Between 20 and 25 August 2021, a total of 88 646 individuals between the ages of 18 and 34 years have received a Covid-19 vaccine,” health head Dr Keith Cloete said.
By Wednesday 1 837 310 vaccines had been administered in the province.
Meanwhile, there are currently 42 780 active infectious cases in the Western Cape, with 3 487 Covid-19 patients in hospitals.
“While case numbers have flattened, there is not yet a clear decrease in case numbers. The risk of being in contact with an infected person at any gathering therefore remains high. The proportion positive has decreased slightly to an average of 36.1%,” Cloete added.
He said they were seeing an average of 3002 new diagnoses each day, with admissions and deaths slightly decreasing, with an average of 295 new admissions and around 93 deaths each day.
At a briefing by the Africa Centre for Disease Control, director Dr John Nkengasong said as of Thursday, 7.6 million Africans had been infected by the Covid-19 virus.
“Of that number about 6.7 million have recovered, this represents an 88% recovery rate. Unfortunately 191 000 deaths have been reported across the continent with a case fatality rate of 2.5%,” said Nkengasong.
Between the week of August, 16 to 22, the continent recorded 239 000 new cases, a 2% decrease from the previous week, with the highest proportion (46%) of new cases coming from Southern Africa.
South Africa was among the top five countries bearing the most burden on the continent at 36%, followed by Morocco at 11%, Tunisia at 8%, Libya at 4% and Ethiopia at 4%.
“In terms of where we are with the third and fourth wave, 69% of member states, 38 countries are now experiencing a third wave, with 76% experiencing a very severe third wave (meaning) the peak of daily cases is higher than that of the second wave,” Nkengasong said.
Kenya, Algeria, Somalia and Tunisia were already experiencing a fourth wave, he added.
Cape Times